


this night

by palladionaigis



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, flashback fic trope, happy family AU, the AU where no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palladionaigis/pseuds/palladionaigis
Summary: It's 3:30 AM, and the sound of a breeze through a cracked window is coming from the speaker.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suaveassassin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suaveassassin/gifts).



> More Good™ and Wholesome™ happy AU, a gift for my Ryoji, @suaveassassin.

Minako had always been a bit of a heavy sleeper. She had been since after high school, and she didn't know if it was from the time she spent in Tartarus every night, or if it was just the stresses of day-to-day life. There's something, though, keeping her from sleep. There's the sound of a breeze through an almost-closed window to her side from the speaker on the bedside table. It's not the alarm clock. When she looks at it, the digital numbers read 3:37.

It's 3:30AM and now she's wide awake. She sits up and throws her legs off the edge of the mattress and blinks at the lack of presence in the bed. Aside from her, it's empty, and cold. _Where is he?_ She thinks, and the bedroom door is still open a crack. She's too tired to run down the hallway so instead, she takes her time, picks up her phone and walks out of the door. She's lucid, she remembers going to bed three hours ago, and since then she hasn't heard anything from the monitor other than that squeaking noise, but even then... maybe she slept through it?

There's pictures hanging up here, several in a row, all in order (at Yukari's insistence). Most of them, she realizes, are candids. She stops to look at them every morning she wakes up at this time (which lately, namely in the past few weeks, has been less frequently than usual), because she realizes how close she was to losing it all.

Their high school graduation picture is the first in the line of photos - in it, they're both standing in front of the Gekkoukan gates with their diplomas in their hands, he's smiling, and she's looking at him with eyes full of love, fixing his scarf. Junpei had been the one taking the photos, and he'd refused to send them any other photo to develop besides this one because of the way the picture actually ended up looking.

Then there's the photo from their wedding - one of her favorites to look at. They'd gotten married almost right out of high school - before they even graduated university, they decided to tie the knot with their makeshift family present. It'd been so small, being that only SEES and some of the various people she met in high school were there, given none of them really had any family. They're standing outside the building of where they'd had the reception, the sun is setting off behind them, and they're both laughing and holding hands - they still both have cake smears on their faces (and some in her hair) but she's never smiled brighter than the smile in this photo. His bowtie in the picture is loosened. In the photo, her knee-length dress is disheveled from all the dancing and his shirt is wrinkled to all hell.

The next is a candid, taken at a Christmas party thrown by the Kirijo group just less than two years ago, the winter before their university graduation. It'd been held at a hotel the next city over, courtesy of Mitsuru who of course pulled out all the stops and spared no expense with the lavish celebration, and all of what was formerly called SEES had been invited. The light in the picture itself is low, taken on the dance floor of the party hall. There were other people in the hall as well, but the photo had been cropped and enhanced to show the focus of the frame. In the photo, her arms are wrapped around his neck, his hands are low on her waist as they dance, he's wearing a dress shirt and a tie of all things in the photo (the Kirijo party was considered "casual black-tie" like most of their other functions), Late into that night, when the party started to wind down, the dances had turned from lively to slower, almost sleepier. She remembers the moments after this picture was taken. The moment where she'd leaned into Ryoji's embrace before standing on her tiptoes to whisper a secret in his ear and him bursting into tears right after, sweeping her up off her feet and twirling her around in his arms.

The next is a photo from the beach on Yakushima. In the early summer following the party from the prior picture, they'd gone back to the island with the rest of SEES to relive memories as well as, at least for the both of them, to get in a vacation to celebrate their graduation only a small handful of months before. The two of them stand facing each other, hands clasped and smiles on their faces, the ocean in the background of the photo. Flowers are woven into her hair. The bottom hem of his untucked shirt is fluttering in the sea breeze, and her loose sundress is billowed around her, though it doesn't hide the prominent curve of her stomach. His forehead is touching hers in the photo, and his eyes are closed, as are hers. The best way to describe it was serene. She'd been so scared when she found out. For days, sick with worry over the little things - if they were _ready_ , if something would go wrong... after all, her life had a tendency to take away the people she loved.

Worry doesn't overtake her anymore.

The next photo is the one she stops to linger on. It's simple, black and white, balanced, a shot of them from just below the bust and up. They're both wearing white, looking almost ethereal; Ryoji's arms are wrapped around her from behind, pressing a kiss into her hair, and she is looking down at her son - _their_ son - sleeping peacefully in her arms. There's a raw semblance of love and protectiveness in her eyes, though the smile she has is more gentle than anything.

While she had hoped only for their child to be healthy, she had almost expected their son to look exactly like Ryoji - exactly like the Pharos from her high school days probably would have looked like, had he been younger then. She'd told Ryoji everything from back then. He didn't have memories of visiting her as Pharos, but she'd drawn a picture of what she remembered him looking like once. The first second she'd even seen their baby, she'd known this was the world's way of paying her back just that much more. He'd been the first to hold him, both of them with their jet black hair, matching beauty marks even, and she remembers the tears leaking down her face the first time she realized this was the baby they'd been waiting so long to meet, but it was Ryoji who did most of the crying.

Speaking of their son, not to mention Ryoji himself, she steps past the last of the pictures. The nursery door is half open. She peeks in, and finds who she's been looking for. Ryoji is asleep in the sliding rocking chair by the window, having moved the tiny monitor closer to the window so it was within reach - on the windowsill. _That explains that,_ she manages in her head, but she's caught in the moment and smiling. He has their son, just turning one in a few weeks, clutched to his chest, both slightly covered by a fleece blanket, and if she listens closely enough, she can hear a tiny snore punctuating every few breaths Ryoji takes. 

She can't help but smile. Her heart aches in the best of ways. He looks so at peace, their son drooling on his shirt. Tears prick at her eyes, and suddenly she remembers the weight in her hand - the phone, _of course_ , she thinks, and she turns the flash off and documents the scene before her. It doesn't wake either of the other two occupants in the room.

The next time any of the members of SEES come to visit, there's a new photo on the hallway wall.


End file.
